The Simpsons family debuted in short animated cartoons on The Tracey Ullman Show before being spun off into their own half-hour series. These shorts, also called "bumpers", aired before and after commercial breaks during the first three seasons of the show.
In recent years, Ullman has jokingly stated that she "breast-fed the yellow people".
All of them were written by Matt Groening and animated at Klasky-Csupo by a team of animators consisting of David Silverman, Wes Archer, and Bill Kopp. The characters' yellow skin color was invented by colorist Georgi Peluse, so people would think the tint control was broken on their TV set, as a high tint setting can cause a fair-skinned person's skin to appear yellowish.
In the beginning, the drawings appeared very crude because the animators were more or less just tracing over Groening's storyboards, but as the series developed, so did the designs and layouts of the characters and the "Simpsons drawing style" was ultimately conceived. This style evolved even more throughout the first few seasons of The Simpsons and was used more than a decade later on Futurama, another animated series created by Matt Groening.
Dr. N!Godatu was another series of animated shorts created by M.K. Brown (and animated by the same Klasky-Csupo team). It originally alternated every other week with the Simpsons shorts, but was dropped after the first season of the show. By this point, Groening's shorts had gained much more popularity and the producers saw no reason to continue Brown's shorts.
Actors: Nancy Cartwright, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Yeardley Smith, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner
Genre: Animation, Comedy
